If you think the nomination hearings for John Ashcroft as the next Attorney
General will be bruising, just wait for the hearing when Gale Norton,
president-elect Bush's choice for Interior Secretary, faces her opposition.

The January 2nd USA Today headline said, "Norton is longtime friend
of property rights." If there is one thing that environmentalists
hate, it is property rights and it is the reason that out-going President
Clinton has, in his final days, has worked to deny the use of more than
sixty million acres of the nation's landmass. Behind this effort has been
one of the most radical members of his Cabinet, Interior Secretary Bruce
Babbitt.

Norton,
a former attorney general for Colorado (1991-98) has served as an associate
solicitor at the US Department of the Interior, directing the legal staff
of the National Park Service, and was assistant to the deputy secretary
of Agriculture, both during the late 1980's. From 1979 to 1983, she had
worked at the Mountain States Legal Foundation, a major proponent of the
"wise use" movement that favors environmental protection, but
is deeply committed to strengthening property rights.

In brief, "wise use" is about the need for this nation to utilize
its vast reserves of timber, coal, oil, gas, and other national resources.
They also favor the use of public lands for recreation that includes hunting,
fishing, camping and motorized-vehicle use. The Interior Department oversees
and regulates more than 400 million acres of federal land, largely in
the West.

Norton's nomination quickly drew praise from groups that include the
American Land Rights Association, the Blue Ribbon Coalition, The Center
for the Defense of Free Enterprise, Citizens for Constitutional Property
Rights, and the League of Private Property Voters, among many others.

It is her enemies, however, that tell you everything you need to know
about the objectives of the Greens. Brent Blackwelder, president of Friends
of the Earth, called her nomination "a declaration of war on the
environment." Alhyssondra Campaigne of the Natural Resources Defense
Council called it "a real slap in the face for the majority of Americans
who want our parks and public lands protected from exploitation by well-financed
mining, oil and other polluting industries." Karl Marx could not
have said it better.

Carl Pope, the executive director of the Sierra Club, said, "Norton's
record sends shivers down our spine" citing her opposition of regulations
"designed to protect the public lands."

These multi-million dollar environmental groups have been calling the
shots at Interior during the Clinton-Babbitt years, finding ways to shut
off this nation's access to billions of dollars of natural resources needed
for energy independence along with the jobs and taxes generated when minerals
of every description can be mined, oil extracted and refined, and trees
can be harvested. The Greens have never met a rancher, farmer or private
forest owner whose land they would not seize in a hot minute.

Here's what Norton has said: "Innovative environmental policies
come about when the states can act as laboratories of democracy. Furthermore,
the states are important in the Federal/state environmental partnership
because there is no such thing as one-size-fits-all government. The states,
where government is closer to the people, are the proper entities to implement
environmental laws and policies."

This is precisely what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they drafted
the Tenth Amendment. It says "The powers not delegated to the United
States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved
to the States respectively, or to the people." You can search the
Constitution for the word "environment" and never find it. You
will, however, find prohibitions against depriving people of their property
"without due process of law."

Neither the States, nor the people, particularly in Western States, have
had much to say about the Clinton mania for "a legacy" based
on depriving Americans of access to and the use of their own lands. The
Federal government owns about one quarter of the entire landmass of the
nation, when you add military bases and other property to that of the
national forests and parks.

The selection of Gale Norton signals a major shift in policy and the
Greens know it. The time has arrived at last to begin the long process
of undoing the damage inflicted by the feckless Clinton Administration.

Alan Caruba is the founder of The National Anxiety Center, a clearinghouse
for information about scare campaigns designed to influence public opinion
and policy. The Center maintains an Internet site at www.anxietycenter.com.